The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 68 Sodium

The huge body of the injured Dreadnought was slowly evacuated from the battlefield, supported by the other two Dreadnoughts, while the rest of the ordinary Dreadnoughts rushed forward and picked up the remains of the corner stones on the seabed.

In this battle, the opponent sent out two brand-new grades, the Netherworld Octopus Corner Stone and the Self-Exploding Corner Stone, to target the Micronized Torpedoes and Fearless Soldiers.

In order to respond, Lin Yi needed to absorb their genetic sequences, conduct reverse engineering research on them, and figure out their specific operating principles.

Especially the self-destruction of the self-exploding hornstone. If Lin Yi can study and understand it, he can further upgrade the micron torpedo and insert relevant structural fragments into the genetic sequence, so that it can have similar abilities and become a real biological torpedo.

After the battle, except for the two escorting the fearless soldiers, the remaining swordfish-shaped Hurd shrimps also took away the corpses of a self-exploding hornstone and a ghost octopus hornstone, and seemed to be preparing to take them back to their nest for study.

As soon as Lin Yi and others arrived at the floating mother nest, they immediately controlled it to move forward slowly under the push of the filtering mother's nest. The attached workers detached from the whisker-like structure under the floating mother's nest and began to recover the corpses.

The first thing to recover was the remains of the Dreadnaught Soldier, to prevent them from being taken away again for reverse engineering research by the Straight Angle Stone Nest Group. Then there were the remains of the Netherworld Cicada Horn Stone and the Self-Exploding Corner Stone.

There’s nothing much to say about the genetic sequence of the Nether Occulent Hornstone. It’s basically a slightly modified version of the filter-feeding Hornstone.

The only thing that bothered Lin Yi was that the gene fragments of the spikes on the opponent's tentacles came directly from the second-generation soldier. This made him dumbfounded - no wonder those spikes looked so familiar.

Next, the most critical thing is the genetic sequence of the self-exploding horn stone.

Since they were all killed in explosions before their deaths, no complete corpses were left behind. But fortunately, the soft part was still intact, and the control workers picked it up and stuffed it into the hole on the surface of the mother nest.

In fact, explosion is not something that living things cannot do at all. In later generations, species such as the Airborne Armor evolved the ability to create explosions.

However, that is achieved by the reaction of chemical substances, which will be accompanied by the generation of smells and other chemical substances, but it seems that there is no explosion process of these self-detonating hornstones.

The results of the analysis came out quickly, answering Lin Yi's doubts. The self-explosion principle of these self-destructing horn stones was in a way that he did not expect.

Only then did Lin Yi understand why these self-exploding hornstones leaked grease after their shells were broken, and why they exploded so quickly.

Their rounded shells, similar to those of hornstones, are not entirely filled with air chambers. Instead, they have a pouch-like structure filled with oil. And the key to their self-explosion is stored in fats - a small amount of sodium!

The chemical properties of metallic sodium are very active. When it comes into contact with water, it will release huge energy, which will appear as a violent explosion. Just like the explosion of these self-destructing corner stones.

It is not unusual for sodium to appear in living organisms. There are small amounts of sodium ions in the human body, and they are widely found in seawater in the form of sodium chloride, that is, salt.

The real difficulty is storing and retrieving large quantities. In terms of storage, the method chosen for self-exploding hornstones by the Orthogonal Nest Group is to soak sodium in grease to isolate water and oxygen.

When you need to explode, you only need to drain the grease, fill the bag with water, and let it come into contact with the water, which will trigger a chemical reaction, release energy, and explode. As for the specific power of the explosion, you only need to look at the horrific wounds on the side of the fearless soldier to know how amazing it is. It was a solid exoskeleton that the horned beak of the Orthospermum could not chew open no matter what. Just a few self-exploding horned stones blew it up like that.

But extracting it is a bit troublesome. They slowly extract sodium from food through a complex production system. The output can be said to be quite low.

From the time this level was developed to now, the opponent may have only produced the self-exploding corner stones invested in this battle, and used the floating mother nest as bait to ambush a lone Dreadnought Soldier and prepare to kill it. Killed and attempted to extract the genetic sequence.

For this reason, they did not hesitate to expose the Nether Cuckoo Corner Stone in advance to clear out the ordinary soldiers, leaving the fearless soldiers with no cover on their sides to facilitate the attack of the self-exploding corner stone.

It has to be said that the plan of the Straight Spiral Stone Nest Group was quite successful. Lin Yi did take the bait and divided his troops into two groups while underestimating the enemy, allowing the fearless soldiers to fall alone, which led to the situation.

Unexpectedly, the plan was disrupted by the sudden appearance of the swordfish-shaped Hurd shrimp, the reinforcements of the strange shrimp nest. In the end, the plan fell short, allowing the seriously injured Dreadnought to escape, and also lost the self-exploding horn stones that were finally produced.

This reflects one of the most critical problems in the structural design of these self-exploding corner stones.

Sodium is wrapped in grease and needs to be drained of oil and filled with water before detonation. This means that there is a certain delay between the time the explosion command is given and the time when sodium contacts water and triggers an explosion.

Of course, to deal with the huge fearless soldiers, it is still necessary to attach and detonate, even if there is a slight delay, it is enough.

But when it comes to a swordfish-shaped Hed shrimp that swims quickly and is maneuverable, this problem becomes particularly fatal.

Therefore, when the swordfish-shaped Hurd shrimp passed through the group of self-exploding corner stones, none of the self-exploding corner stones exploded. This is because their "fuses" were not triggered in time, and they were chopped by the swordfish-shaped Hurd shrimp and lost their ability to move independently.

This is why in the previous battle, the swordfish-shaped Hurd shrimp easily and flexibly split the shells of the self-exploding horn stones, but itself was not injured.

Subsequently, every time the self-detonating corner stone exploded, the shell ruptured, grease leaked out, and the sodium and water came into contact with each other. At this time, the speed of the swordfish-shaped Hed shrimp was enough to escape the explosion range.

In general, sodium's slow production speed and limited trigger delay make them unsuitable for large-scale combat. It is only suitable for ambush operations in a small area, just like this ambush of fearless soldiers.

Perhaps this is also the reason why the other party has to obtain the gene sequence of the fearless soldier at such a price. They urgently need to reverse engineer the genetic sequence of the fearless soldier and develop a grade that can fight it.

Otherwise, with the power of self-exploding corner stones, if they can be mass-produced and appear on the battlefield on a large scale, even if they are defended by a complete group of soldiers and have multiple fearless soldiers covering each other, they will end up dead.

But even so, if the opponent obtains the genetic sequence of the fearless soldier, develops a new grade, and then cooperates with the self-exploding corner stone, it will be disadvantageous to Lin Yi.

Fortunately, the reinforcements from the Anomalocaris nest arrived in time, and the appearance of the swordfish-shaped Hed shrimp prevented the plan of the Orthostridium nest from succeeding. This made Lin Yi think again for a while.

(End of this chapter)